bruce SCHULER

Bruce Talks About:

During the off-season Bruce is a builder and owner of Mapcat Construction.

Bruce and his wife Gerrianne were married in 2003 and they have identical twins daughters. Gerrieanne is a schoolteacher for GRPS.

Bruce and his family live on the Thornapple River in Caledonia, Michigan.

During the past ten years I have grown my passion for organic gardening into a farming business. We currently lease a farm in Caledonia, from which we are growing a CSA, participating in a farmers market and selling to restaurants and a grocery store. This farming life is the closest thing to job dharma I have experienced yet. Hopefully with the right amount of energy and timing, I’m confident it will pay off.

I am from Morrison, Illinois, a small-town in the northwest corner of Illinois. I graduated from Illinois State University with a bachelor of science in 1985

First job out of college was in Holland, MI in the machining industry. Worked as a machinist, an engineer and then a product manager in the 80’s through the late 90’s. In 1988 I purchased the third Presbyterian church of GR to renovate as a home and graphic arts studio. During those days that I worked in industry, I learned a lot, put in many hours, but really was only in it for the money. The precision machining industry was something I knew a lot about due to the amount of time I had invested in it, but my heart just wasn’t in it. What kept me sane back then was my church, which provided endless construction projects and my small business called Creative Graphix. Loaded with a Mac, and some decent screen-printing equipment I was able to find customers who needed my services. The church with its 33′ tall ceiling heights and all it’s space provided an excellent space to print many t-shirts, etc.

In 1998 I bought a home in the Caledonia area and was using my church for not much more than storage. I was so busy with my corporate machining job that I was not at the church very often. An individual from the west side decided to arson my building in my absence and was semi successful. The damage caused, forced me to make decision to fix it within a 12 month, city driven time frame, or pay to have it demolished. I used the insurance money, a year of my time, and my new MI builder’s license to renovate the church into two separate buildings. Toward the end of the renovation I was able to sell the property to an investor.

I started a small company after the church renovation called MAPCAT construction. The crux of the business is renovation and remodeling. I have really enjoyed being self-employed and have had the opportunity to be involved in many challenging and creative projects. The construction business has provided me a lot of personal experience and satisfaction.